[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'F')ine, I don't see how you can imagine any post peak world without tolls added to the interstates. Talk about no brainers.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'F')ine, I don't see how you can imagine any post peak world without tolls added to the interstates. Talk about no brainers.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'A')s I keep repeating, nothing is going to happen until there is a crisis. Joe Sixpack's going to be happy to have food in the stores and gas at the gas station - even at $10 per gallon.

[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')

Clearly it is necessary once again to beat you over the head with my point. This is just an example of how quickly nuclear power can be deployed. This was France's repsonse to the 1970's OPEC embargoes. The post peak government response will be more even more intense and focussed.

[DigitalCubano]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '
')Cal Tech Physicist Dr David Goodstine calculated how many nuclear power plants would be needed to replace oil the energy we get from oil worldwide...Any way you dice it up, it is quite clear that nuclear indeed cannot easily replace oil for energy of transport.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')

Clearly it is necessary once again to beat you over the head with my point. This is just an example of how quickly nuclear power can be deployed. This was France's repsonse to the 1970's OPEC embargoes. The post peak government response will be more even more intense and focussed.

[dub_scratch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DigitalCubano', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '
')Cal Tech Physicist Dr David Goodstine calculated how many nuclear power plants would be needed to replace oil the energy we get from oil worldwide...Any way you dice it up, it is quite clear that nuclear indeed cannot easily replace oil for energy of transport.

[DigitalCubano]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'E')ven a tiny fraction of 10,000 nukes would be expensive.

[dub_scratch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DigitalCubano', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'E')ven a tiny fraction of 10,000 nukes would be expensive.

[grabby]

I think our frame of reference is so far changed that we cannot even think of alternatives in reality anymore.

Rousseau claimed that "a great princess" told the peasants to eat cake/brioche when she heard they had no bread.

[But Rousseau wrote this in early 1766, when Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old, still living in her native Austria and not yet married to King Louis XVI. So it's highly unlikely that Marie uttered the pompous phrase.]

But thats beside the point again.

the main thrust of htis post is to think about life without transportation (Oil)

Ok for one month you have no car, and neither does your neighbor and neither does the UPS man or the grocery clerk or the hydroelectric dam engineer or the policeofficer or the judge or the jailers or the mayor .

amazingly only bill gates and barbra streisand can drive in their SUV's (They will)

you think your life will change?

Nah, technology will let us now produce high tech hydrogen cars...
lets start building them..
but..
how do we get to work? the mail doesn't go and the phones are down.
hmmmm.
oh well, we COULD make some hydrogen cars if we COULD get to the big city and place our orders directly by hand...


Bill gates will always have gas.
maybe he will be the serf ruler of western washington.

[pedalling_faster]

I've been walking since the Wednesday before Katrina. It was sort of a New Year's resolution that took a little time to follow through on. The buses are pretty good. Once I was standing at the stop, wearing a wet-suit and holding a board. The driver went right by. Basically I try to schedule stuff that only takes one bus ride at night. A 2 bus ride trip can be a REAL marathon.

My shopping trip on Saturday, I must have spent $200. Groceries, lumber, trudging through the streets with about 100 pounds of stuff. Walking one way, taking the bus home.

When I first started, I got major blisters. Basically, I was a tenderfoot when I started this regimen. 8 years of surfing and swimming and yoga might be good for your health, but it leaves one a tenderfoot.

Anyway, walking feels good. I walk up to the top of a local mountain a few days a week. I walk errands. I walk to social things. A lot of times I walk one way and take the bus home. Then rely on the old truck for special circumstances.

I joke that I got a friendly divorce from the truck. There's a mattress in the back and my apartment building is kind of noisy so sometimes I sleep there (in the truck).

[nocar]

Pedallingfaster, good job, I just do not understand why you are not bicycling?

And that 100 pounds that you brought home, how did you get it aboard the bus? Just want to see the whole picture.

(we have not owned a car since 1971, but that is different i Stockholm, even if we live in suburb. And I have not forsworn taxis, late at night or when having bought heavy stuff )

nocar

[Doly]

Walking has always been my favorite way of going to places, if at all possible. I know cycling is faster, but it needs a bike and the trip must be suitable for cycling.

[TorrKing]

A simple (like they made in the old days) cycle can probably be sufficiently mainained by quite primitive means for hundreds of years, given enough metal around.

There are cycles enough around, we won't run out of them in quite a while, even if no new ones are produced.

Cycling without asphalt and other modern roadmaterials may be a pain though. When the trees start penetrating through the asphalt, you quickly have forest instead of road. This has nearly happened on some local roads where I come from.

Torjus Gaaren

[pedalling_faster]

hi, responding to nocar's question

I have a problem with my eyes, a bad outcome from LASIK eye surgery. anything that involves a lot of air moving fast, past my face, dries out my cornea, which is painful.

so I walk.

as far as how I get on the bus with that much stuff - very carefully.

bicycles are great. I used to ride a lot. I go to a yoga class, some of the instructors ride their bikes, they're actually examples for me of a "post-peak" lifestyle. within america, this is one place I've noticed people living a non-materialist lifestyle. Just their clothes, yoga mat, a book of sufi poems, some carrot and wheatgrass juice.

[nocar]

Pedalling_faster wrote[s]
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have a problem with my eyes, a bad outcome from LASIK eye surgery. anything that involves a lot of air moving fast, past my face, dries out my cornea, which is painful.

[pedalling_faster]

thanks for the suggestion, no car.

yeah, probably, with the right gear, i could bicycle & enjoy it.

but, no hurry. walking & taking the bus work too.

[cube]

Everybody seems to have their own vision of what transportion will look like in a post PO world. Here's mine. Imagine a greyhound bus aka "the dirty dog" on steroids.

What would it look like?

Imagine an articulated bus that's designed for long distance travel. Each bus has 2 drivers, so they can take turns driving. Acording to Federal law a commercial driver cannot drive for more then 11 hours straight. So if they want to really push it a bus can travel 22 hours in one day. However this can be pushed even further by having special bus stations where a "fresh" bus driver will be on standby. A travelling bus can make a quick 5 minute stop and a "spent" driver can be replaced with a "fresh" one. Basically imagine a bus that runs for 24 hours a day minus making a few quite stops for fuel and breaks. A greyhound bus on "steroids" could easily go from San Francisco to New York in less then 48 hours. That's not as convenient as taking a plane but that's still a hell of a lot faster then taking an "Amtrak" train. If you really want to get exotic imagine a double articulated bus...yes they do exist. BTW this bus is electric but a bus designed for freeway travel would obviously be diesel powered. picture

There are those who argue that when PO hits we're going to make a mad dash for electric trains. I disagree. America isn't set up for rail travel. Besides where will the money come from? Using buses would allow us to use our existing infrastructure....freeways. A good argument can be made this seem like a half-baked partial solution but nobody ever said PO was going to be pretty.

[nocar]

I agree, all those American superhighways is a giant infrastructure that must be taken advantage of in a low-energy future.

But buses require more energy than trains. I think people eventually will build rail road tracks on the superhighways - much easier than building an entirely new railroad.

Electric road vehicles have the big disadvantage in having to carry heavy electric batteries all the time. Trolley buses that take power from the grid is much more efficient in terms of enery requirements. It should not be impossible to build powerlines on the superhighways for that purpose.

nocar

[Micki]

48hrs in a Bus!
Talk about economy class syndrome after such a trip.
Now I know what dieoff all those doomers talk about.

Naeh gimme the train any time. Bed, restaurant, space to move around...